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This was a good one…The merry pranksters behind the CoalCares.org site not only had the moxy to add a ™ symbol to their site name, they even had the bravado to use the (genuinely) registered trademark of Peabody Energy as well. Not only were they content to spoof the coal industry’s attempts at better Community Relations, they even linked directly back to Peabody Energy for maximum effect and traceability!

In its shameless contempt for the world’s largest private-sector coal company, this spoof site represents itself as a branding initiative intended to reach out to American youngsters with asthma and to help them “keep their heads high in the face of those who would treat them with less than full dignity”. For kids who have no choice but to use an inhaler, Coal Cares™ lets them inhale with pride!

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So…After having to endure so much more global ennui this past month, EnviroNauts are going to try and take a more local approach to plotting-out sustainable Futures for ourselves…

Earth Hour 2011

March 26th saw Earth Hour come and go here in Toronto, and astoundingly for a city so bent on demonstrating its political correctness, the initial visibility enjoyed by this annual event is showing signs of flickering right out.

What started as an easy way to for armchair environmentalists and idealists of all types to make a token, yet satisfyingly visible gesture about kicking their energy habits (even just for an hour) has now seemingly fallen right off the radar for most people…at least for this year anyhow. See pics below;

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Someday people will look back and wonder what could have possibly been the causes for such unprecedented increases in electrical costs on the average Ontarian – all without there being any truly impressive expansions in infrastructure or generating capacity to show for it all. The groundswell of grumblings from ratepayers has already become loud and clear as people are starting to demand reasons for our seemingly hyper-inflationary energy market. At the very least, are expecting some clarified views of any long-term benefits that might come from this short term pain. Otherwise, this information vacuum could really start to seriously damage our social structure and erode our trust in elected officials to not simply hoodwink an entire energy market with shallow short-term promises, and gouging new long-term rates.

Astoundingly, the Government continues falling well short of the mark in their communications efforts, seemingly without any thought for the political consequences.

Unfortunately this superficial approach leaves the electorate to slowly succumb to all sorts of nagging doubts. The most obvious one being that these mounting energy costs could have somehow been better managed by indentured public servants who remain immune to the negative and corrective effects of a truly free-market system. Or that bloated bureaucratic and political posturing has likely also created added costs that have simply been passed down onto the backs of ratepayers.

You can share your own thoughts, and add some new answers in in a quick survey below…Or just consider what others have been thinking and saying to date.

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Everyone knows that great power demands great responsibility. Nothing demonstrates the truth of that saying more than the enormous risks behind nuclear energy. Consider that even less than a century ago it would have seemed like pure fantasy for mere humans to manipulate matter at the atomic level, much less release the awesome power of those nuclear bonds.

It’s no wonder then that the exact nature of this science would still baffle even the most tech-savvy among us. Even less surprising that it seems like a frightening and destructive threat to anyone who is unable (or perhaps just unwilling) to see past the complexities that surrounds nuclear science. For those with an anti-nuclear agenda to advance, therein lies the great power to confound and deceive, rather then grow and develop. It’s the manipulative fear that remains the greatest point of leverage in the nuclear debate.

Of course, the public image of nuclear energy has been forever tainted by one of it’s most infamous applications. As the terrible force behind the most devastating weapons ever devised by Mankind, nuclear power has to live down its military upbringing through an uphill PR battle to present safe, civilian nuclear energy. A source of power that offers a clean alternative to the toxic destruction of fossil-fueled energy that goes on all around us every moment of every day…Seemingly with a full and acceptable sanction of both the Press and the Public as somehow less dangerous than the potential risks and imagined dangers of nuclear energy.

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It would seem that the ‘commodification of carbon’ is now well and truly in its final throes, and that the remediation efforts against of Climate Change will need to seek out a better method of self-correcting via the various (Consumer?) Markets. The death knell for carbon trading in North America is the significant, yet curiously under-publicized news that The Chicago Climate Exchange (Inc.) will close down its cap-and-trade market by the end of the year, as announced by spokeswoman Brook McLaughlin via CNN.

What’s curious is that hardly anybody else, out there in the more Mainstream Media, is so much as batting an eye – let alone packaging this news (and it’s deeper implications) for easy public consumption. It seems that this letdown in the domestic trading of carbon credits is primarily due to political and public opinion shifts in the U.S. resulting in the failures of last years disappointingly de-clawed U.S. Clean Air Act.

The decision also coincided with a significant Republican victory and the loss of Democratic Control in the US House of Representatives. However, if you look abit deeper, we can all see that the Carbon Cap and Trade concept was indeed flawed at a much deeper level…and that this failure might also betray some underlying motivations for this financial scheme to begin with!

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Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that “rules are not necessarily sacred, but good principles are.” Unfortunately, there there seems to be a scarcity of good sacred principals available to sustaining Society through difficult times nowadays, which might explain a rise in Fundamentalism (radical or otherwise) as we search for any unassailable principals to rally around as a Society .

What we see instead, is that our greatest temples are built to represent the power of money and commerce, and the graven images of celebrities that we’ve idolized now seem to hold the place of of demi-gods in many people’s lives. Popular as they may be, these cultural icons make rather poor pillars build the Future upon, no matter how well they might reflect our dreams and aspirations today.

When looking for leadership from the more obvious sources, it almost seems strangely naive to suggest that we simply rely on politicians to step up with clear plans. Much less for the ruling Corporate Elite to offer the leadership required to build a sustainable future for Humanity. So where are our guiding principals coming from in cynically post-modern age?

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Nuclear energy is still one of those loaded topics that is driven more out of fear than facts. Even when simply weighing the environmental risks and benefits of this supposedly ‘Green’ energy source, people’s defense mechanisms still lock themselves into rigid and even fearful frames of mind that invariably leave no room for rationale debate. Even while we continue to burn coal and oil at an ever-accelerating rate of global destruction, the subject of atomic energy remains mired in taboo, and dogmatic diatribe that has stunted it’s development in North America for decades now. This confounding ecological paradox leaves one tempted to consider the possibility that Big Oil would indeed be willing be support the propaganda efforts required to maintain the negative Public profile that has dogged ‘nuclear’ for this long!

As things go, the clearly polarized and often narrow views held by so many on the subject of nuclear power might very well decide the future fate of Humanity…Depending on how we collectively decide to see things here in the Present.

Unfortunately it seems that between the Mainstream Media’s thirst for scandal and disaster stories continues to play directly into the hands of the Public Relations experts behind certain ‘Eco Groups’. Self appointed stewards of our environmental issues who often seem more suited to advancing their own agendas through PR spin, rather than in tabling suggestive solutions that would work now, rather than make vague allusions to an unrealized Future.